Lakshyadhar Choudhury

Lakshyadhar Choudhury was a many-sided figure of Assamese public life: playwright, short story writer, actor, teacher, freedom fighter, legislator and a minister of education and cultural affairs in Assam. He was born in Rangmahal, North Guwahati, studied at Cotton College, and left his teaching job in 1942 to join the Quit India Movement. He was elected to the Assam Legislative Assembly in 1967, served as the second Mayor of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation, and later presided over the Asam Sahitya Sabha and the Asom Natya Sanmelan.

His first love was the stage. He wrote plays from his school days, and Nimila Anka, Thikana, Raksha Kumar and Ali Baba are among his works. He moved between theatre, film, radio and television as a performer.

In cinema he directed Nimila Anka (1955), adapted from his own play, and Lachit Borphukan (1961), and he also acted in a number of Assamese films. He kept acting late in life: in May 2000, at 85, he took the lead in his play Thikana before a full house, and he died that August.